


weather this storm

by desastrista



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Aimeric Lives, Alternate Universe, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Fix-It, M/M, Mentions of Pedophilia, Mentions of Suicide, Past Sexual Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-10
Updated: 2016-04-10
Packaged: 2018-06-01 09:01:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6511957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/desastrista/pseuds/desastrista
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Spoilers for Prince's Gambit and King's Rising.) </p><p>Aimeric makes a different choice that night. This is what happens after.</p><p>Fix-it fic: Aimeric lives. A bit darker than most fix-it fic, but there's a happy ending.</p>
            </blockquote>





	weather this storm

**Author's Note:**

> I fully expect this to be Jossed when C.S. Pacat releases Green But For a Season. :( 
> 
> Some of the timing of events might not be canon-compliant because I was too in denial about Chapter 20 of Prince's Gambit to pay attention for the first few chapters of King's Rising.

It is the night after the confrontation with Laurent, and Aimeric is still reeling. 

He cannot stop thinking about what his father and the Regent have done, what he has done for them, the accusations that Laurent hurled at him, what he has done to Jord. It is too much. There is a storm inside him. It is tearing him apart. He does not know what he wants. 

He wishes he could be at peace. Even the thought of peace is a temptation. He could give up. He could give in. He could end his life and calm this storm. 

But Aimeric has never been one to shy away from a fight. Even one that he does not think he's going to win. 

He thinks about killing himself that night, but does not. 

 

He sleeps and wakes up disoriented. Half his face still hurts from where the Prince had smashed it with a goblet. He touches one side gingerly and flinches at the pain. 

His dreams had been a cacophony of images and thoughts. As he gets up, most of them fade. The only thing that's left is the impression that last night he dreamed of a lover.

He does not know whether he dreamed of the Regent or Jord. 

 

Aimeric is left alone for most of the day. No doubt that is thanks to Jord, who intervened when some of the soldiers had earlier tried to have their way with Aimeric. Jord had always looked out for him, when they were on the road, even after he turned on Laurent, even after he betrayed Jord. 

It was Jord's attempt to bargain for Aimeric's safety that had led to the confrontation with Laurent last night. All the secrets that Aimeric had been keeping for so long had all come out into the open last night. 

His biggest betrayal, unmasked. 

And yet still, the morning after, no one disturbs Aimeric. Jord is still keeping him safe. 

 

Aimeric was the fourth son in his family. He had never distinguished himself in fighting or strategy or any of the arts. His mother doted on him, but even she was often too busy to pay him much mind. Aimeric had grown up in other people's shadows and it had made him greedy for the time and the attention of others. 

And then then the Regent had arrived in Fortaine. 

He had showered Aimeric and Aimeric alone with attention. The Regent did not care about his older brothers. He wanted to spend time alone with Aimeric. He was an important man, but he even extended his stay in Fortaine to spend more time with him. 

Because he loved Aimeric. 

And because Aimeric loved being loved, he had done things with the Regent that had made him uncomfortable. It was alright, the Regent had assured him. This was just how people showed they loved each other. 

Aimeric remembers Laurent's taunts. The Regent never invited him to Court. The Regent never came back to Fortaine. His body had aged and matured; the Regent was no longer interested in him. 

But Aimeric had never really stopped being that little boy who just wanted to be noticed. 

 

It can't be good for Aimeric to be alone with his thoughts. He'll drown in them if he's not careful. He's almost relieved when his door is all but knocked down by Laurent, followed by Damen and Jord. 

There is a raw fury in Laurent that Aimeric has not seen before, and Damen and Jord are trying to contain it. Aimeric does not share their concern. He is not afraid of the Prince. As far as he is concerned, there's not much more that Laurent can do to him.

The Prince sends Aimeric's chair crashing to the ground as he pins him up against the wall. Aimeric's head hits the stone hard. It hurts and there's something refreshingly straightforward about that kind of pain. His lips curl into a snarl. He can feel a familiar hatred rising in his chest. That hatred for Laurent has been sustaining him for months, and it's infinitely better than the haze he has been in this whole day. 

“If you do not tell me everything my lecherous uncle has told you about what he has planned, I will have you skinned slowly, intimately –,” Laurent is saying. 

His slave is trying to intervene. “Laurent, this isn't you,” he's saying, and Aimeric has to disagree with the Akielon there. 

Aimeric doesn't actually have any of the information they want. As far as he is aware, there were no plans after the battle for Ravenel. But Laurent doesn't have to know that. 

“My father is going to kill you,” he spits out. He relishes the words. 

Damen has managed to pry Laurent off him. Aimeric has to catch himself from slumping down against the floor. The slave is leading Laurent out of the room. He catches Aimeric’s eyes as he leave. His expression is livid. It gives Aimeric a certain satisfaction. That slave is an abomination. No Veretian should lie with an Akielon.

But the triumph is short won. He's alone with Jord, who does not follow Laurent and Damen out. Aimeric stares at the ground. He knows Jord is looking at him. He cannot meet Jord's eyes. 

“Aimeric –,” Jord begins. 

Aimeric's mouth feels very dry. “You shouldn't be here,” he says. 

Jord takes a step towards him. Aimeric would take a step back if he could. But he is already against the wall. There's nowhere he can go. 

Jord stops to right the chair that Laurent had knocked over. Aimeric doesn't move. 

“I don't blame you,” Jord says slowly. “For what you did. For anything that Laurent said yesterday. It wasn't right, what happened to you.” 

The words are far kinder than he deserves. The words are a knife that twists in Aimeric's heart. 

“I'm sorry, Jord,” he says. He cannot think of anything else to say. Even those simple words feel all mangled up in his mouth. There's so much more he needs to say. He just can't trust himself with any more words at this time. 

“Do you have any idea what the Regent's plan for Charcy is?” 

Aimeric shakes his head. Jord just nods. “I'll tell the Prince,” he says, and sees himself out. 

 

When Laurent returns, he is alone. Whatever spell took hold of him is gone and his usual icy demeanor has settled back into place. Aimeric regards him warily from the seat he's taken at the desk. 

“Have you come back to threaten to skin me again?” he asks. 

Laurent lifts one eyebrow almost lazily. “Yes, I could still have you skinned,” he says, in a contemplative voice. Neither one of them doubts how much he would enjoy that course of action. But he adds, sounding almost disappointed, “But I’ve had a chance to really consider all my options, so now I think I'll threaten you with something you're actually afraid of.”

Aimeric's heart skips a beat. He keeps quiet. 

It's a mistake. 

“Or maybe you won’t actually object,” Laurent continues. “Maybe he's wrong about you.” 

Aimeric just closes his eyes. This is not happening. Even Laurent, treacherous, vile Laurent, would not steep so low. Through gritted teeth, he says, “You wouldn't.” 

“Dismiss Jord?” Laurent asks. There's no missing the delight in his voice. As if even contemplating the action gives him a certain thrill. Despite himself, Aimeric flinches. 

“He is the best man you have.” 

“No,” Laurent says the word with a cruel certainty. And then he gives a mirthless laugh and continues, “No. My best man – a good commander – would not let himself be seduced by a spy. Particularly not a spy who murders his friends. Or a spy foolish enough to think that the Regent regards him as anything other than a convenient tool to use against me.” 

The rage in Aimeric is so strong that he can taste it in his mouth and he can feel its heat against his skin. But it is an empty thing; there is nothing he can do. He clenches his jaw. His hands ball into fists. He takes a breath and lays his hands flat again. 

“I don't know anything,” he says, trying to keep his voice as flat as possible. “I was told there would be a battle. It was supposed to be an easy victory. No one anticipated that you would have reinforcements. If my father or the Regent had other plans, I am not aware of them.”

Laurent does not say anything. The silence drags on brutally. 

“Please,” Aimeric says at last. “Please, don't involve Jord in this.” 

Laurent makes a dismissive noise. He does not say another word, but turns on his heels and leaves the room. Aimeric is left alone again. He holds his head in his hands and tries to blot out his thoughts. 

 

Aimeric didn't love Jord, not at first. 

Jord was a means to an end. The task handed down to him from his father was clear: he was to weaken Laurent's forces from the inside, sowing dissent, undermining discipline. He'd started – and lost – a few fights to no avail. He needed something else. And there was no missing the way the men looked at him. Sleeping with the Captain had seemed so obvious. 

He'd been congratulating himself as they kissed by the fire, and smiling for all the wrong reasons when Jord had led him back to his tent. But when they were inside, and Aimeric was on the ground with the feel of soft canvas against his back, and Jord was kissing at his exposed neck – only then did Aimeric start to think he might have miscalculated. 

Aimeric had slept with men before. But he had never had much of a connection to them, or them to him. Aimeric was used to getting fucked, and not expecting much from his partner. 

Jord was different.

He had a soft, almost reverential way of touching Aimeric. And when he put his mouth on Aimeric's cock or, later, when he entered Aimeric, he seemed somehow to care about Aimeric, whether Aimeric was enjoying himself, in a way that was absolutely disorienting for the aristocrat.

But for Aimeric, who loved being loved, it was irresistible. 

 

The next time Jord comes in to the room, it's during the day, and Jord looks over his shoulder before stepping through the door. Aimeric frowns to himself. If he is sneaking in to see Aimeric, that is unlike Jord.

But then he walks over and bends down to kiss Aimeric. That’s like Jord. 

How long has it been since they last kissed? Before Aimeric's capture, before the battle, before Aimeric snuck off. Before Jord knew the truth about Aimeric. 

Aimeric cannot keep the hunger out of his kiss, dragging Jord forward, his tongue mashing against Jord's. And Jord lets him, lets him dominate the kiss, until eventually he breaks away. 

“Are you being treated well?” he asks. 

“I've missed you,” Aimeric says, and he feels the truth of it in his bones. 

He catches a glimpse of a strange sadness in Jord's eyes before Jord looks away, behind his shoulder. “I can't come that often –,” he says, by way of apology. 

“I'm sure Damen will be furious if he finds you here.”

“Damen is busy with other things at the moment,” Jord replies. He shifts his weight uneasily between his legs. Jord is an honest man. He's easy to read. There's something he's not telling Aimeric. Aimeric just gives him a questioning look. 

Jord doesn't look at him as he says, “The Akielons have taken the castle.” 

Aimeric jerks as if the words were a blow. “So it's true,” he says. His words have a hollow sound to them. But then more spill out, rising in crescendo, “It's true what my father said, what the Regent said. Laurent is letting the Akielons invade Vere.” Jord is giving him a sideways glance and Aimeric doesn't want to have this fight but he can't seem to stop himself. “ _This_ is the man that you serve --” 

“You swore to serve him, too,” Jord reminds him. His voice is gentle. 

Aimeric closes his mouth and purses his lips together. His head feels very light. He does not want to have this fight with Jord, he tells himself. Not now. Not after everything. 

Aimeric has never had an easy time keeping quiet. 

He's almost opened his mouth to say more when Jord continues, “I don't pretend to know why he did what he did. But I’m sure there’s a good reason, and I’m sure he knows it, and that is enough for me.”

The look that Jord gives him makes it clear that he’s no longer just talking about Laurent. Aimeric can feel his cheeks burning. It’s his turn to look away. 

There's more noises from the hallway. Jord starts to stand back up nervously. 

“Please don't go,” Aimeric finds himself saying, because Aimeric is selfish. 

“I have to go,” Jord replies. There's a heaviness to his words. For the first time, Aimeric sees the dark bags under Jord's eyes. Aimeric feels another twang of by-now-familiar guilt. No doubt it's because of him that Jord hasn't been sleeping well. “Damen rides out tonight. I will be going with him.” 

Aimeric knows that his frown is petulant. He doesn't care. Seeing it, the corner of Jord's mouth lift. 

“I don't know who will win this fight for the throne. But I took an oath to defend the Prince, so that is what I will do. And who knows, if Laurent wins, maybe he will be more likely to listen to words on your behalf from a voice at his side.” 

Aimeric does not have Jord's strong sense of loyalty, particularly not to Laurent. He expects that if Laurent wins, he will hang. But it's hard to miss the edge in Jord's voice. Jord is staking everything on this fragile hope of his. For the first time, Aimeric regards the idea of himself being killed as perhaps something he doesn't want to happen. 

“Be safe,” he says.

“You too,” Jord replies, and he must catch Aimeric's confusion, because he adds, with the first genuine amusement Aimeric has seen in him since they camped together, “I know you, Aimeric. Stay out of trouble.” 

If Aimeric is about to object, Jord cuts him off with another kiss. It's brief, too brief, but Aimeric finds the taste of it lingering on his mouth and he smiles to himself even after Jord leaves. 

 

Jord leaves. The Akielons leave. The castle is quieter. Aimeric is left alone. 

Mostly, he writes. Sometimes the letters are to Jord. Sometimes to the Regent. Sometimes to his father. He burns every single one of them. He likes to hold the letter over the candle and see the flame lick through the page. It's almost a game, how long he can hold on to it. His fingers get singed more than once. 

There is not much for him to do in his captivity. He is imprisoned with his own thoughts. He keeps dreaming of a lover and forgetting when he wakes who it was. After it has happened enough times, he writes about it in one of his letters to Jord. That letter he burns even faster than the others. When he tries to write about it to the Regent, the words won’t come and Aimeric burns the letter before it is finished.

 

Jord had told Aimeric to stay out of trouble. He tries to follow those instructions. He really tries. And for the first few weeks, he succeeds. 

But he keeps talking to the guards. It's hard to miss how they stare at him. They have been given orders, he knows, but the orders are from the men who let the Akielons invade the castle. And Aimeric is a captive of high value, but he's also very pretty and the castle does not have a lot of other entertainments. 

After a while, he stops discouraging them. 

The first time he lets a guard fuck him, it's refreshingly rough. The guard does not speak as sweetly as the Regent does, and he does not dote on Aimeric like Jord does. He fucks Aimeric up against the wall. The stone digs sharply against his forearms as he braces himself. Aimeric does not come. He can feel the burns the stones left on his skin for the rest of the day. 

Jord would never, ever, ever have done anything like that to him. He's starting to realize that the Regent probably wouldn't have even noticed the pain it caused. 

 

It's not a good idea to get a reputation as the one prisoner in this castle who is easy to fuck. Jord would likely have been disappointed in him if he knew what he was doing, although surely for Jord that would be a familiar sensation by now. One guard gets too insistent, though, and Aimeric ends up taking a swing at him. The guard hits him back, and Aimeric finds himself once again back in a fight. 

Aimeric never used to win fights. 

He wins this one. 

It's hard to tell who is more surprised, him or the guard. By the end, Aimeric's lip is split, and he has new bruises to match the fading ones that Laurent gave him when he smashed the goblet in his face. But he has done enough damage to convince the other man that it'd be easier to just make a pass at a stableboy instead. 

Jord never liked all the fights that Aimeric would get into. He worried even more about how often Aimeric lost them. Most of them time, when he would talk to Aimeric about the subject, he would advise him to not pick as many fights. But sometimes he would give him advice. 

Apparently the advice had worked. 

Aimeric couldn't help but laugh, even as his injured lip protests the action. He contemplates writing a letter. He can just imagine what he would write to Jord. 

_Against all your wishes, I failed to stay out of trouble. But this time, I got into a fight and I won!_

It occurs to him suddenly that he has no idea where Jord is. Vere? Akielon? He has no idea. Of course, for all he knows, Jord could have been injured – Aimeric cannot even bring himself to contemplate that possibility. _Jord is too good a soldier for that to happen to_ , he finds himself thinking.

And then, with a sudden flash of inspiration, he sits down to write a letter to someone he has never written to before. 

Laurent. 

 

Writing to Laurent is his way of releasing the poison from the wound. 

It is a confession. He describes the Regent's trip to Fortaine from his childhood. He talks about the political rewards he knows his father gained from that trip. He combs his memory for anything at all that might be of relevance in Laurent's fight against his uncle. 

And he tells Laurent that he is mad for removing Jord of his command. 

It's a surprisingly difficult letter to write. It takes a few days. Aimeric writes and rewrites sections before he hands the final version to be delivered. The guards do not disturb him; after the last fight, he believes they are likely under orders not to. 

Aimeric does not doubt that most of the letter will not surprise Laurent. Perhaps his Akielon slave can read it and be scandalized. If the Regent – or even his own father – found it, Aimeric is dead. It is treason. It is likely a powerful political weapon in the Prince’s hands. It is the only thing that Aimeric, imprisoned in this palace, can think to do for Jord. 

The night the letter is sent out, Aimeric sleeps well for the first time in months. His dreams are clear. Even though it has been months, in his dream he can still remember what it was like to have Jord’s hands on him and to feel the warmth of his breath against his skin. 

 

A few weeks after the letter is sent, he is sent back to Fortaine. The war is over. The Regent has been executed as a traitor. Laurent is now the King of Vere and plans to unite it with Akielos. 

At Fortaine, his mother hugs him tightly and will not stop peppering him with kisses. There had been times when Aimeric had thought he would never see her again. It is a surprising, overwhelming relief to be able to hug and kiss her back. 

But the family cannot all be reunited. His mother is a bearer of bad news. The Regent had put Laurent on trial. His father gave false testimony. His mother, still unsure of Aimeric’s mission and wondering what would befall her sons if she spoke up, had kept quiet. But then Laurent had read aloud some of Aimeric’s letter, confessing what he had done and what he had been asked to do. When the Regent accused Laurent of forgery, his mother had corroborated his story. 

“It was a brave thing you did,” she says proudly. 

Aimeric isn’t so sure. “Mother,” he asks, tentatively. “What father did – with the Regent – what is going to happen to him?” 

“Your father will be executed as a traitor.” Aimeric recoils at the words. His mother does not. There’s a hardness in her eyes. _She could have stayed silent_ , he finds himself thinking. _She chose to talk._ And there was no mistaking the expression. She had done what she had done because she believed it the right thing to do. 

She had done what she had done for Aimeric. 

Aimeric had grown up in other people’s shadows. It had made him greedy for the time and the attention of others. 

And his mother’s dedication to him – to getting justice for what had been done to him, when he was only a child – had decided the political fate of Vere. 

He hugs his mother again, and she gives him a faint smile. “Oh,” she adds, “And there’s a man who wanted to talk with you. He came with me.” 

 

Jord was waiting for him not too far from the kitchen. He had been sitting down, lost in his own thoughts, but stood up when he heard Aimeric approaching. 

Aimeric ran forward to kiss him. 

It seemed to take him a little by surprise, but it was not long before Jord was kissing him back in earnest. 

“I missed you,” Aimeric broke away first to say it. “I missed you so much I could barely stand it. Are you alright? Are you injured?” 

Jord just gives an amused huff. “I missed you too,” he said, one hand reaching up to absent-mindedly cradle Aimeric’s cheek. “And I’m fine. Did you stay out of trouble?” 

“Not particularly,” Aimeric smiles as he leans in to Jord’s hand. 

Jord just laughs at his answer. 

 

Aimeric leads Jord back up to his bedroom. Jord is telling him some tales from the road – apparently he had stayed in Fortaine, after Laurent had captured it from his father – but Aimeric is only half-listening. The last thing he cares about at this time is politics. 

The only thing he cares about is Jord. 

Jord seems nervous, just like the last time that Aimeric had led him to a bed. But he wastes no time in kissing Aimeric, pinning him against the covers. And Aimeric – antagonistic by nature and never one to shy away from a fight, even if he can’t win it – feels that strange, familiar sense of peace that only happens when he is with Jord.


End file.
